Postage

Bro. W. Farrar writes from Kingston, Wis., March 23, 1868:—T14 75.4

“Dear Bro. and Sr. White: Please find enclosed $5.00, to pay postage.”T14 75.5

Thank you, dear brother. We do not recollect of paying postage on your account. You have set a good example to those persons, and those churches, whose required testimonies and letters have cost not only postage and stationery, but days of wearisome writing and copying. While these lines are being penned, two school teachers are copying in another room.T14 75.6

James White,
Ellen G. White.

* * * * *

Dear Bro. ——: I was shown in regard to your case that you move much from feeling instead of from firm principle. You lack a deep and thorough experience in the things of God. You need to be wholly converted to the truth. When a man's heart is fully converted, all that he possesses is consecrated to the Lord. This consecration you have not yet experienced. You love the truth in word, but do not manifest that love you profess, in your deeds and by your fruits. Your acts, your deeds, are evidences of the sincerity and genuineness of your love or your indifference for God and for his cause, and your love for your fellow-men.T14 76.1

How has Christ manifested his love for poor mortals? By the sacrifice he has made of his own glory, his own riches, and even his most precious life. Christ consented to a life of humiliation and great suffering. He submitted to the cruel mockings of an infuriated, murderous multitude, and to the most agonizing death upon the cross. Said Christ: “This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.” Here is the evidence of being the friends of Christ, if we manifest implicit obedience to his will. It is no evidence to say, and do not; but in doing, in obeying, is the evidence. Who obey the commandment to love one another as Christ has loved them? Bro. ——, you must have firmer, deeper, and a more unselfish love, than you ever yet have possessed, if you obey the commandment of Christ.T14 76.2

You lack in benevolence. You labor to save yourself from care, trouble, or expense, for the cause of God. You have invested but little in the cause. That enterprise which man values the most, will be seen by his investments. If he places a higher estimate upon eternal things than upon temporal things, he will show this by his works; he will venture something here, and will invest the most, and venture the most, in that which he values the highest, and which in the end brings him the greatest profit.T14 77.1

Men who profess the truth will engage in worldly enterprises, and invest much, and run great risks. If they lose nearly all they possess, they feel deeply aggrieved, because they feel the inconvenience of the losses they have sustained. Yet they do not feel that their unwise course has deprived the cause of God of means, and as God's stewards, they have to render an account for this squandering of the Lord's money. Should they be required to venture something for the cause of God, invest a quarter even of that which they have lost by their investment in earthly things, they would feel that Heaven costs too much.T14 77.2

Eternal things are not appreciated. You are not a rich man, yet your heart may be just as much placed upon the little you have, and you cling to it just as closely as the millionaire to his treasures. Small, very small, will be the profits realized by you in your investments in worldly enterprises; while, on the other hand, to invest in the cause of God, have that cause a part of you, and love it as you love yourself, and be willing to sacrifice for its advancement, showing your confidence and faith in its ultimate triumph, you will reap a precious harvest, if not in this life, in the better life than this. You will reap an eternal reward which is of as much higher value than any common, earthly gains, as the immortal is higher than the perishable.T14 77.3

Bro ——, you seemed anxious to find out what had been said in regard to your position in the church, and what was our mind in regard to it. It was just this that I have written. I feared for you, because of what I have been shown of your peculiarities. You moved by impulse. You would pray if you felt to, and speak if you felt to. You would go to meeting if you felt to, or stay at home if you felt to. You lacked greatly the spirit of self-sacrifice. You have consulted your own wishes and ease, and pleased yourself, instead of feeling that you should please God. Duty, duty! at your post every time. Did you enlist as a soldier of the cross of Christ? if so, your feelings excuse you not from your duty. You must be willing to endure hardness as a good soldier. Go without the camp, bearing the reproach; for thus did the Captain of your salvation. The qualifications of a bishop, or of an elder or deacon, are to be blameless as the stewards of God; not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.T14 78.1

Paul enumerates the precious gifts to be desired, and exhorts the brethren: “He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another, with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another; not slothful in business; fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer, distributing to the necessity of saints, given to hospitality.” “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good; that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.” Here is a wise and perfectly safe investment; good works are here specified and recommended for our practice, for your practice. Here are profits that are valuable. There will be no danger of a failure here. A store, a treasure is here secured in Heaven, a constant accumulation which will give to the investor a security, a title to eternal life. And, when his life shall here close, and probation end, he may lay hold on eternal life.T14 79.1

Bro. ——, you, I saw, are not a lover of hospitality, you shun burdens. You feel that to feed the saints, and look after their wants, is a task, and that all you do in this direction is lost. Please read the above scriptures, and may God give you understanding and discernment, is my earnest prayer. As a family you need more liberality, and to be less self-caring. Love to invite God's people to your house, and, as occasion may require, share with them cheerfully, gladly, that of which the Lord has made you stewards. Do not give grudgingly these little favors. As ye do these things to my disciples, ye do it unto me, just as you begrudge the saints of God your hospitality, you begrudge it to Jesus.T14 79.2

The health reform is essential for you both. Sister —— has been backward in this good work, and has suffered opposition to arise, and has not known what she was opposing. She has opposed the counsel of God against her own soul. Intemperate appetite has brought debility and disease, weakening the moral powers, and unfitting her to appreciate the sacred truth, the value of the atonement, which is essential to salvation. Sister —— loves this world. She has not separated, in her affections, from the world, and given herself unreservedly to God, as he requires. He will not accept half a sacrifice. All, all, all is God's and we are required to render perfect service. Says Paul, “I beseech you by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living [not dying] sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.” What a privilege is thus allowed us, to prove for ourselves, experimentally, the mind of the Lord, and his will toward us. Praise his dear name for this precious gift! I have been shown that Sister ——’s grasp must be broken from this world before she can have a true, safe hold of the better world than this.T14 80.1

Bro. ——, you should move carefully and keep self under; be patient, meek, and lowly. A meek and quiet spirit is, in the sight of God, of great price. Then you should cherish that which God esteems of worth. A work must be accomplished for you both before you can meet the measurement of God. Work while the day lasts, for the night cometh in which no man can work. Stand in the clear light yourselves, then can you let your light so shine, that others, by seeing your good works, will be led to glorify your Heavenly Father.T14 81.1

In love,
E. G. W.
Greenville, Mich., January 23, 1868.

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Dear Bro. and Sr. ——: Your cases have been brought before me in vision. As I viewed your lives they looked to be a terrible mistake. Bro. ——, you have not a happy temperament. You are not happy yourself, and you fail to make others happy. You have not cultivated affection, tenderness, and love. Your wife has suffered all her married life for sympathy. Your married life has been very much like a desert—but very few green spots to look back upon with grateful remembrance. It need not have been thus.T14 81.2

Bro. ——, love cannot exist without revealing itself in outward acts, any more than fire can be kept alive without fuel. You have felt that it was beneath your dignity to manifest tenderness by kindly acts, and watch for an opportunity to evince affection for your wife by words of tenderness and kind regard. You are very changeable in your feelings, and are very much affected by circumstances which surround you. You have not felt that it was wrong,—displeasing to God,—to allow your mind to be fully engrossed with the world, and then bring your worldly perplexities into your family, thus letting the adversary into your home. When you thus open the door, which is very easy for you to do (but you will find it not so easy to close), very difficult will it be to turn out the enemy when once you have brought him in. Leave your business cares, and perplexities, and annoyances, when you leave your business. Come to your family with a cheerful countenance, with sympathy, tenderness, and love. This will be better than medicines, or money expended for physicians for your wife. It will be health to the body and strength to the soul. Your lives have been very wretched. You have both acted a part in making them so. God is not pleased with your misery, but you have brought it upon yourselves by want of self-control.T14 81.3

You let feelings bear sway. You think it beneath your dignity, Bro. ——, to manifest love; to speak kindly and affectionately. All these tender words, you think, savor of softness and weakness, and are unnecessary. But in their place come the fretful words—words of discord, of strife, and of censure. Do you account this as manly, noble; as an exhibition of the sterner virtues of your sex? However you may consider them, God looks upon them with displeasure, and marks them in his book. Angels flee from the dwelling where words of discord are exchanged; where gratitude is almost a stranger to the heart; but censure leaps like black-balls to the lips, spotting the garments, and defiling the Christian character.T14 82.1

When you married your wife she loved you. She was sensitive, extremely so, and with painstaking on your part, and fortitude on hers, her health need not have been what it is. But your stern coldness made you like an iceberg, freezing up the channel of love and affection. Your censures, your fault-findings, have been like a desolating hail to a sensitive plant. It has chilled and nearly destroyed the life of the plant. Your love of the world is eating out the good traits in your character. Your wife is of a different turn, and more generous. But when she has, even in small matters, exercised her generous instincts, you have censured her. You have felt a drawback in your feelings. You indulge a close, begrudging spirit. You make your wife feel that she is a tax, a burden, and that she has no right to exercise her generosity at your expense. All these things are of such a discouraging nature that she feels hopeless and helpless, and has not stamina to bear her up, but bends to the force of the blast. Her disease is pain of the nerves. Were her married life agreeable she would possess a good degree of health. But all through your married life the demon has been a guest in your family to exult over your misery.T14 83.1

Disappointed hopes have made you both completely wretched. You will have no reward for your suffering, for you have made it yourselves. Your own words have been like deadly poison upon nerve and brain, upon bone and muscle. You reap that which you sow. You do not appreciate the feelings and sufferings of each other. God is displeased with the hard, unfeeling, world-loving spirit you possess. Bro. ——, the love of money is the root of all evil. You have loved money, loved the world; you have looked at the illness of your wife as a severe, a terrible tax, not realizing that it is your fault in a great measure that she is so. You have not the elements of a contented spirit. You dwell upon your troubles; imaginary want and poverty far ahead stare you in the face; you feel afflicted, distressed, agonized; your brain seems on fire; your spirits depressed. Sweet love to God, and precious gratitude cherished in your heart for all the blessings your kind Heavenly Father has bestowed upon you, you do not have. You see only the discomforts of life. A worldly insanity shuts you in like heavy clouds of thick darkness. Satan exults over you, because you will have misery, when peace and happiness are at your command.T14 83.2

You listen to a discourse—the truth affects you, and the nobler powers of your mind arouse to control your actions. You see how little you have sacrificed for God, how closely self has been cherished, and you feel swayed to the right by the influence of the truth you are under; but when you pass from under this sacred, sanctifying, soothing influence, you do not possess the sanctifying influence in your own heart, and you soon fall into the same barren, ungenial state of feelings. Work, work—you must work—brain, bone, and muscle taxed to the utmost to get means which your imagination tells you must be obtained, or want and starvation will be your lot. This is a delusion of Satan, one of his wily snares to lead you to perdition. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. But you make for yourself a time of trouble beforehand.T14 84.1

You have not faith, and love, and confidence in God. If you had, you would trust in him. You worry yourself out of the arms of Christ, fearing he will not care for you. Health is sacrificed. God is not glorified in your body and spirit which are his. There is not the sweet, cheering, home influence to soothe and counteract the evil which is predominant in your nature. The high, noble powers of your mind are overpowered by the lower organs. The evil traits of your character are developed.T14 85.1

You are selfish, exacting, and overbearing. This ought not to be. Your salvation depends on your encouraging a principle—serving God from principle; not from feeling, not from impulse. God will help you when you feel your need of help, and set about the work with a resolution, a will, trusting in God with all your heart. Control your words. You are often discouraged when you have not sufficient reason to be. You possess feelings akin to hatred. Your likes and dislikes are great. These you must control. Control the tongue. “He that offendeth not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.” Help has been laid upon one that is mighty. He will be your strength, your support, your front guard, and rearward.T14 85.2

What preparations are you making for the better life? It is Satan who makes you think all your powers are required to be exercised to get along in this life. You are fearing and trembling for the future of this life, while the future, eternal life is neglected. Where is the anxiety, the earnestness, the zeal, lest you should make a failure here, and sustain an immense loss? To lose a little of this world seems a terrible calamity to you, which would cost your life. But to lose Heaven, not half the fears are manifested. You are in danger through your careful efforts to save your life here, of losing it eternally. You cannot afford to lose Heaven, lose eternal life, lose the eternal weight of glory. All this exceedingly precious, immeasurable happiness, riches and treasure, you cannot afford to lose. Why do you not act like a sane man, and be as earnest, as zealous, and as persevering, in your efforts for the better life, the immortal crown, the eternal treasure which is imperishable, as you are for this poor, miserable life, and these poor, perishable, earthly treasures?T14 85.3

Your heart is on your earthly treasures, therefore you have no heart for the heavenly. These poor things which are seen—the earthly—eclipse the glory of the heavenly. Where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Your words will show, your acts will declare, where your treasure is. If it is in this world, the little gain of earth, your anxieties will be manifested in that direction. If you possess an earnestness, an energy, and zeal proportionate to the value of everlasting life and the immortal inheritance, then can you be a fair candidate for everlasting life, an heir of glory. You need a fresh conversion every day. Die daily to self, keep your tongue as with a bridle, control words, cease your murmurings, your complaints. Let not one word of censure escape your lips. If it requires a great effort, make it; you will be repaid in so doing.T14 86.1

Your life is now miserable, full of evil forebodings. Gloomy pictures loom up before you; dark unbelief has inclosed [enclosed] you about. By talking on the side of unbelief you have grown darker and darker, and taken satisfaction in dwelling upon unpleasant themes. If others try to talk hopeful, you crush out in them every hopeful feeling by talking all the more earnestly and severely. Your trials and afflictions are ever keeping before your wife the soul-harrowing thought that you consider her a burden because of her illness. If you love darkness and despair, talk of them, dwell upon them, and harrow up your soul by conjuring up in your imagination everything you can to cause you to murmur against your family and against God, and make your own heart like a field which the fire has passed over, destroying all verdure, and leaving it dry, blackened, and crisped.T14 87.1

You have a diseased imagination, and deserve pity. Yet no one can help you as well as yourself. If you want faith, talk faith; talk hopefully, cheerfully. May God help you to see the sinfulness of your course. You need help in this matter—the help of your daughter and of your wife. If you suffer Satan to control your thoughts as you have done, you will become a special subject for him to use, and will ruin your own soul, and the happiness of your family What a terrible influence has your daughter had! The mother, not receiving love, sympathy an you, has centered her affections upon the daughter and has idolized her. She has been a petted, indulged and nearly-spoiled child, through the exercise of injudicious affection. Her education has been sadly neglected. Had she been educated to household duties, to act her part in bearing her share of the burdens of the family, she would now be more healthful and happy. It is the duty of every mother to teach her children to act their part in life in being useful; to act a part in sharing her burdens, and not be useless machines. Your daughter's health would have been better to have educated her to physical labor. Her muscles and nerves are weak, lax, and feeble. How can they be otherwise, when they have so little use? This child has but little power of endurance.T14 87.2

A small amount of physical exercise wearies her and endangers health. There is not elasticity in muscles and nerves. Her physical powers have lain dormant so long that her life is nearly useless. Mistaken mother! know you not that in giving your daughter so many privileges of learning the sciences, and not educating her to usefulness and household labor, you do her a great injury? This exercise would have hardened, or confirmed, her constitution, and her health would have been far better. Instead of this tenderness proving a blessing, it will prove a terrible curse. The mother, had she shared her burdens with the daughter, would not have overdone, and might have saved herself much suffering, and the daughter been benefited all the time. She should not now commence to labor all at once, and bear the burdens one at her age could bear, but she can educate herself to perform physical labor to a much greater extent than she has ever done in her life.T14 88.1

Sister —— has a diseased imagination. She has secluded herself from the air until she cannot endure it without feeling inconvenience from it. The heat of your room is very injurious to health. The circulation is depressed. She has lived in the hot air so much that she cannot endure the exposure of a ride out of doors without realizing a change. Her poor health is owing somewhat to the exclusion of air, and she has become so tender that she cannot have air without making her sick. If she continues to indulge this diseased imagination she will not be able to bear scarcely a breath of air. She ought to have the windows lowered in her room all through the day, and have a circulation of air. God is not well pleased with her for thus murdering herself. It is unnecessary. She has become thus sensitive through indulging a diseased mind. Air she wants, air she must have. Not only is she destroying her own vitality, but that of her husband, and her daughter, and all who visit her. The air in her room is decidedly impure, and dead, and none can have health who accustom themselves to such a bad atmosphere. She has petted herself in this matter until she cannot change the air to go to visit the houses of her brethren without taking cold. She must change this for her own sake and for the lives of those around her; accustom herself to bear air every day, and increase it until she could be a little more, and a little more, until she can breathe the pure, vitalizing air without injury. The surface of the skin is nearly dead because it has no air to breathe. It has a million little mouths, but they are all closed, because they are clogged through impurities of the system, and for want of air. It would be presumption to now let in a free draught of air at once from out of doors, all through the day. Let it in by degrees; change gradually. In a week she can have the windows down two or three inches day and night.T14 88.2

Lungs and liver are diseased because she deprives herself of vital air. Air is the free blessing of Heaven, calculated to electrify the whole system. Without it the system will be filled with disease, become dormant, languid, feeble. Yet you have all been for years living with a very limited amount of air. In thus doing, your wife drags others into the same poisonous atmosphere with herself. None of you can possess clear, unclouded brains while breathing a poisonous atmosphere. Sister —— dreads to stir out to go anywhere because she must feel the change in the atmosphere and take cold. She can yet be brought into a much better condition of health if she rightly treats herself. Twice a week she should take a general bath, as cool as will be agreeable, a little cooler every time, until the skin is toned up.T14 90.1

She need not linger along as she does, always sick, if you will all as a family heed the instructions given of the Lord. “He that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him seek peace and ensue it; for the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous and his ears are open unto their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.” A contented mind, a cheerful spirit is, health to the body and strength to the soul. Nothing is so fruitful a cause of disease as depression, gloominess, and sadness. Mental depression is terrible. You all suffer with it. The daughter is fretful, partaking of the spirit of the father; and then the heated, oppressed atmosphere, deprived of vitality, benumbs the sensitive brain. The lungs contract, the liver is inactive.T14 90.2

Air, air, the precious boon of Heaven, which all may have, will bless you with its invigorating influence, if you will not refuse it entrance. Entertain it, cultivate a love, a necessity for it, it will prove a precious soother of the nerves. Air must be in a state of constant circulation to be kept pure. The influence of pure, fresh air upon the system, is to cause the blood to circulate healthfully through the frame. It refreshes the body, rendering it strong and healthy, while at the same time its influence is decidedly felt upon the mind, imparting a degree of composure and serenity. It excites the appetite, and renders the digestion of food more perfect, and induces sound and sweet sleep.T14 91.1

The effects produced upon the system by living in close, ill-ventilated rooms are these: The system becomes weak and unhealthy, the circulation is depressed, the blood is not purified by inhaling pure, invigorating air; it moves sluggishly through the system because it is not electrified by the vitalizing air of heaven. The mind becomes depressed and gloomy, while the whole system is enervated; and fevers and diseases of acute character are liable to be generated. Your careful exclusion of external air and fear of free ventilation leave you to breathe the corrupt, unwholesome air which is exhaled from the lungs of those staying in these rooms, and which is poisonous, unfit for the support of life. The body becomes relaxed; the color of the skin is changed, becomes sallow; digestion is retarded, and the system is peculiarly liable to the influence of cold. A slight exposure produces serious diseases. Great care should be exercised when weary, or when in a perspiration, not to sit in a draught or in a cold room. You should so educate yourself to have air that you will not be under the necessity of having the mercury higher than sixty-five degrees.T14 91.2

You can be a happy family if you will do what God has given you to do, and enjoined upon you as a duty to perform. God will not do for you that which he has left for you to do. Bro. —— deserves pity. He has so long felt unhappy that life has become a burden to him. It need not be thus. His imagination is diseased, and, if he meets with adversity or disappointment, he has so long kept his eyes on the dark picture that he imagines everything is going to ruin, that he will come to want, that everything is against him, that he has the hardest time of any one; and thus his life is made wretched. The more he thinks thus, the more miserable he makes his life and the lives of all around him. He has no reason to feel as he does; it is all the work of Satan. He must not suffer Satan thus to control his mind. He should turn his mind away from the dark and gloomy picture to that of the loving Saviour, the glory of Heaven, the rich inheritance prepared for all who shall be humble and obedient, possessing grateful hearts and abiding faith in the promises of God. This will cost him an effort, a struggle, but it must be done. Your present happiness and your eternal, future happiness, depend upon your fixing your mind upon cheerful things, looking away from the dark picture, which is imaginary, to the unseen, eternal, and the benefits which God has strewn in your pathway.T14 92.1

You belong to a family who possess minds not well balanced; gloomy, and depressed, and affected by surroundings, and susceptible of influence. Unless you cultivate a cheerful, happy grateful frame of mind, Satan will eventually lead you captive at his will. You can be a help, a strength to the church where you reside, if you will obey the instructions of the Lord, and not move by feeling, but be controlled by principle. Never allow censure to escape your lips, for it is like desolating hail to those around you. Let cheerful, happy, loving words fall from your lips.T14 92.2

Bro. ——, your organism is not the best for your spiritual advancement, yet the grace of God can do much for you to correct the defects in your character, and strengthen and more perfectly develop those powers of mind which are now weak, and need force. In so doing you will bring into control those lower qualities which have overpowered the higher. You are like a man whose sensibilities are benumbed. You need to have the truth take hold of you and work a thorough reformation in your life. “Be ye not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable, and perfect will of God. This is what you need, and what you must experience——the transformation which a sanctification through the truth will effect for you.T14 93.1

Do you believe that the end of all things is at hand, that the scenes of this earth's history are fast closing? If so, show your faith by your works. A man will show all the faith he has. Some think they have a good degree of faith, but if they have, it is dead because it is not sustained by works. “Faith without works is dead, being alone.” Few men have genuine faith, that faith which works by love, and purifies the soul. All who are accounted worthy of everlasting life must obtain a moral fitness for the same. “Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is; and every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” This is the work before you, and you have none too much time if you engage in the work with all your soul.T14 93.2

You must experience a death to self, and live unto God. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.” Self is not to be consulted. Pride, self-love, selfishness, avariciousness, covetousness, love of the world, hatred, suspicion, jealousy, evil surmisings, must all be subdued and sacrificed forever. When Christ shall appear, it will not be to correct these evils, and then give a moral fitness for his coming. This preparation must all be made before he comes. It should be a subject of thought, of study and earnest inquiry, What shall we do to be saved? How shall we conduct that we may show ourselves approved unto God?T14 94.1

When tempted to murmur, censure, and indulge in fretfulness, wounding others around you (and in so doing wound your own soul), oh! let the deep, earnest, anxious inquiry come from your soul, Shall I stand without fault before the throne of God? None will be there only the faultless. Men and women will not be translated to Heaven while their hearts are filled with the rubbish of earth. Every defect in the moral character must be remedied, every stain removed, by the cleansing blood of Christ, and all the unlovely, unloveable traits of character overcome.T14 94.2

How long are you designing to take to prepare to be introduced into the society of heavenly angels in glory? In the state you and your family are in at present, all Heaven would be marred should you be introduced therein. The work for you must be done here. This earth is the fitting up place. You have not one moment to lose. All is harmony, peace and love in Heaven. No discord, no strife, no censuring, no unloving words spoken, no clouded brows, no jars there; and no one will be introduced there who possesses any of these elements so destructive to peace and happiness. Study to be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate, laying up for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come, that ye may lay hold on everlasting life.T14 95.1

Cease, forever cease, your murmurings in regard to this poor life, but let your soul's burden be, how to secure the better life than this, a title to the mansions prepared for those who are true and faithful to the end. If you should make a mistake here, everything is lost. If you devote your lifetime to secure earthly treasures, and lose the heavenly, you will find you have made a terrible mistake. You cannot have both worlds. “What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul; or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” Says the inspired Paul: “For our light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”T14 95.2

These trials of life are God's workmen to remove the impurities, infirmities, and roughness from our characters, and fit us for the society of pure, heavenly angels in glory. But as we pass through these trials, as the fires of affliction kindle upon us, we must not keep the eye on the fire which is seen, but let the eye of faith fasten upon the things unseen, the eternal inheritance, the immortal life, the eternal weight of glory; and while we do this the fire will not consume us, but only remove the dross, and we shall come forth seven times purified, bearing the impress of the divine.T14 96.1

E. G. W.
Greenville, Mich., March 7, 1868.

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Dear Bro. and Sr. ——: While speaking in meeting Sunday afternoon, I could scarcely refrain from calling your names, and relating some things which had been shown me. I saw that Bro —— did not occupy that position in his family that God would have him. Sister —— takes the lead; she possesses a strong will, which has not been subdued as God requires, and Bro. ——, in order to please his wife, and keep her from despondency, has yielded to her. Her judgment has swayed him, and he has not been a free man for years.T14 96.2

When Bro. —— first engaged in the work of teaching the truth to others, he was little in his own eyes. God used him as his instrument. But I saw that for some time in the past he has not humbled himself under the hand of God. He has trusted to his own wisdom and weak judgment, and Satan has been obtaining an advantage over him. Instead of relying solely upon God and staying himself upon his strength, he has had his judgment perverted by the influence of his wife. She has stood in a position to see, to hear, to understand, all that was going on around her. Did she possess a sanctified judgment and heavenly wisdom, then would she see through sanctified eyes, and hear through sanctified ears. She would make a right use of her eyes and of her ears, She has not done this. “Who is as blind as my servant, or as deaf as the servant that I send?” God does not wish us to hear all there is to be heard, nor to see all there is to be seen. It is a great blessing to close the ears, that we hear not, and the eyes, that we see not. The greatest anxiety should be to have clear eyesight to discern our own shortcomings, and a quick ear to catch every needed reproof and instruction lest by our inattention and carelessness we let them slip, and are forgetful hearers, and are not doers of the work.T14 96.3

Bro —— your labors, for some time in the past, have not been as wisely and successfully directed as formerly. Your course of action has not borne the certain marks of the impress of God. Your wife has been a manager of your temporal matters, and borne burdens which were too heavy for her to bear, while you have been absent. This has excited your sympathy, and had a tendency to pervert your judgment so that you have placed too high an estimate upon her qualifications, because of her capabilities in managing your temporal matters. Satan has been watching his opportunity to make as much as possible to his own advantage of this confidence you have had in your wife. He has purposed to trammel you and destroy you both. You have to a great degree thrown off your stewardship upon your wife. This is wrong; she will have all she can do to bear her share of the responsibility, without bearing that which comes upon you, which God will hold you accountable for.T14 97.1

Sister —— has been deceived in some things. She has thought that God had instructed her in a special sense. You both have believed and acted accordingly. The discernment she has thought she possessed in a special sense, is a deception of the enemy. Sister —— is naturally quick to see, quick to understand, quick to anticipate, and is of an extremely sensitive nature. Satan has taken advantage of these traits of character, and you have both been led astray. Bro. ——, you have become a bondman for quite a length, of time. That which Sr. —— has thought was discernment has much of it been jealousy, regarding everything with a jealous eye, suspicious, surmising evil, distrustful of almost everything. This causes unhappiness of mind, despondency, and doubt, where faith and confidence should exist. These unhappy traits of character turn her thoughts into a gloomy channel, where she is inclined to a foreboding of evil, with a highly-sensitive temperament, to imagine neglect, slight, and injury, when it does not exist. All these things stand in the way of the spiritual advancement of you both, and affects, to a degree, others to just that extent that you are connected with the cause and work of God.T14 98.1

There is a work for you to do: humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that you may be exalted in due time. These unhappy traits of character, with a strong set will, unless corrected and reformed, will eventually prove that you both make shipwreck of your faith.T14 98.2

Bro. ——, you have a duty to do. Assume the stewardship you have resigned, and in the fear of God take your place at the head of your family. You must be shaken from the influence of your wife, and rely more fully upon God, and expect him to lead you, to guide you. God has not especially instructed Sr. ——, or given her light to teach others their duty. You cannot be both occupying the position God would have you, while things remain as they now do. You will never be established, strengthened, and settled, until you allow your wife to occupy the position a wife should. While she occupies her proper place, respect her judgment, consult with her in regard to your plans, but be very cautious of taking it for granted that her judgment is as the judgment of God. Consult with your brethren upon whom God has seen fit to lay the burden of the work. Had you thus advised with those whom you should, you would not have committed so great an error, so sad a blunder, as you did in the case of L. G. B. God's cause was wounded and reproached in this case. Your wife thought she had light in this case; but her impressions were not of God, but of the enemy, because he saw that you could be affected in this direction. Your trusting so completely to your wife's judgment is contrary to Heaven's arrangement. Satan has designed, in this way, to cut you off, in a great measure, from the influence of your fellow-laborers, and your brethren in general. You have had trials that otherwise you would not have had, if you had not considered your wife in a position that God has not placed her in. You have too implicit confidence in her judgment and wisdom. She has not been consecrated to God, therefore her judgment has not been consecrated. She is not a happy woman, and the unhappy train her mind has taken has greatly injured her physical and mental health. Satan has designed to unsettle you, and cause your brethren to lose confidence in your judgment. Satan is seeking to overthrow you. When God especially calls your wife to the work of teaching the truth, then should you lean to her counsel and advice, and confide in her instructions. God may give you both, as possessing an equal interest in, and devotion to the work, equal qualifications to act a prominent part in the most solemn work of saving souls. The great work before her is to be diligent in making her calling and election sure. To cease watching others, and now begin the work to be very jealous of herself. Be diligent to make her calling and election sure; seek to bless others by her godly example, her cheerfulness, fortitude, courage, faith, hopefulness, joy, in that perfect trust, that confidence in God, which will be the result of sanctification through the truth. An entire conformity to the will of God she must have. Christ says to her, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first great commandment. The second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as self. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”T14 99.1

In love,
E. G. W.

[The above was written at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, Oct 4 1867. I could not get time to finish the testimony and copy it, so laid it by for the present and did not find time to finish it till I reached Greenville, Michigan, on returning from the East, when I took it in hand, January 30, 1868.]T14 101.1

Dear Bro. and Sr. ——: You should have had this long ago, but our labors have been so hard I could not possibly get the time to write. Every place that we visited brought much that I had been shown of individual cases before my mind, and I have written in meeting, even while my husband was preaching.T14 101.2

The vision was given me about two years ago. The enemy has hindered me in every way he could to keep souls from having the light God had given me for them. First, my husband's case was so perplexing, so distressing, I could not write. Then the discouragements received from my brethren kept me in a condition of sadness and distress unfitting me for labor of any description. When we started to travel last summer, I commenced to write but we have traveled from place to place: so rapidly that all we could do was to attend the meetings. There was much work to be done. I practice rising at four o'clock in the morning and take hold of my writing. Yet constant, exciting labor in meeting so taxes the brain that I am unprepared for writing, my head is so weary.T14 101.3

I regret that you could not have had this before but even now may God make it a blessing to you, is my sincere prayer. You, my dear brother, may have seen these things and corrected them ere this. I hope so, at least. You have our sympathy and prayers; also your wife. We have an interest for her as well as yourself. Her soul is precious. We beseech of her in Christ's stead, to seek for a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price. An angel pointed me to Sister ——, and repeated these words: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on THESE THINGS.” Here is the healthful train for the mind to run upon. When it would go in a different channel from this, bring it back again. Control the mind. Educate it to dwell only on those things which bring peace and love.T14 101.4

I commit this to you, hoping and praying that God may bless it to you, and that you both may obtain a fitness to be counted worthy of eternal life.T14 102.1

E. G. W.